Letter from AIA Central Massachusetts President, Jack Moran |
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Dear AIA Central Massachusetts Member,
Happy New Year! We begin 2022 with cautious optimism that it will bring back a sense of normalcy – even if that means a new normal.
Despite all the challenges that 2021 threw at us, we had a very successful year. We organized 8 programs, providing our members with the opportunity to earn 13.5 continuing education learning units, including:
- Three Ways to “Steel” the Look, presented by AIA CM Affiliate Member, Pella
- Celebration of International Women’s Month in March: a viewing of the film “City of Dreamers” followed by a panel discussion with 2020 Recipients of the BSA Women in Design Award of Excellence: Cheri Ruane, FASLA, Lynne Denniger, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, and AIA CM Member (and former Board Member) Kathryn Crockett, AIA, LEED AP.
- “The Business of Healthy Buildings” webinar and panel discussion, hosted by Consigli Construction, Co, Inc.
- Annual Building Code Session: “How International Existing Building Codes and Massachusetts’ Unique Building Requirements Combine to Support Public Safety in Buildings”
- “Climate Change, Smart Buildings & Net Zero Design with Kailash Viswanathan of Arch Energy.
- "Comparing Massachusetts Building Codes 8th & 9th Editions"
- Worcester Blackstone Canal District Tour: “How the Past Shapes the Future”
- Adhesive-free Floors by Altro, hosted by Lamoureux Pagano Associates | Architects
The Board of Directors and its Program Committee are busy putting together another full slate of programs for this year, so please check our website and your email for notification of upcoming events.
In October, AIA CM hosted the Annual AIA New England Design Awards at Polar Park in Worcester, which included a tour of the ballpark and keynote by renowned urban planner and longtime baseball consultant, Janet Marie Smith. Twenty-six design awards were presented including one to Central Massachusetts firm Studio InSitu Architects, Inc. (See a profile of the firm below). All award-winning projects can be viewed on our website here.
Each year the scholarship committee of AIA CM awards up to two scholarships to two deserving architecture students. This year, we awarded Brenda Hernandez, a M.Arch candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a $1,000 scholarship ($500 from AIA CM and a matching award from AIA National).
Last year also saw two longtime Board members complete their service to the organization. Ethan Anthony, AIA and Daniel Lewis, AIA volunteered innumerable hours to the Chapter over many years, playing many roles, including each serving terms as President. Our longtime Executive Director, Monica Cunningham also retired this year. All three have been a huge part of the success of the Chapter, and we thank them for all of their hard work.
With Monica’s retirement from AIA CM, we were excited to welcome our new Executive Director, Caroline Deltoro in September. Caroline bravely joined us in the sometimes chaotic month preceding the AIA NE Awards Dinner, and we could not have pulled it off without her.
For the past two years, AIA CM has been led by President Mariana O’Brien, PhD, Associate AIA. We are extremely grateful for her leadership and friendship. She will remain active in our Chapter, while assuming the role of President of AIA Massachusetts, and I look forward to continuing our work together.
Finally, I would like to thank the current Board members, including a new slate of officers elected at our Annual Meeting on December 14.
- Jack Moran, Associate AIA, President (Consigli Construction Co., Inc.)
- Sean Brennan, AIA, Vice President (Lamoureux Pagano Associates | Architects)
- Mariana O’Brien, PhD, Associate AIA, Interim Secretary (Massachusetts Department of Mental Health)
- Navneet Magon Anand, Associate AIA (Design Veritas | Soc)
- Steve Lewis, AIA (Gorman Richardson Lewis Architects – retired)
We are looking forward to another successful year, and hope to “see” you (either virtually or in-person) at our programs and events! On a final note, the Board is looking to welcome additional volunteers to help serve on our committees: Outreach, Program, Sustainability, Newsletter, Scholarships and Emerging Professionals. If interested, please reach out by emailing info@aiacm.org.
Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2022!
Best,
Jack Moran, Associate AIA
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Firm Profile: Central MA Best of Chapter Winner for AIA NE Awards 2021, Studio InSitu
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The New England Design Awards Best of Chapter Award for Central Massachusetts was awarded to Maynard-based architectural firm, Studio InSitu Architects, Inc. for the renovation of the Masonic+Button Studio Apartment in Northampton, Massachusetts.
The jury commented on the project’s, “flexibility of spaces, great sense of proportions, and the interphase of materials.”
“I feel really proud for my firm to be recognized with these awards - and I love this little project,” said Principal W. Timothy Hess. “In just 596 sf, our challenge was about as simple as it could be: We composed the space to feel generous, and we tried to keep our interventions on the periphery, amplifying and framing the mass and bones of the old factory building and its views of the city. I’m not sure it’s a very important project, but I do think we’ve made a great little apartment!”
Studio InSitu opened in January 2014 after Hess spent his formative experience in firms on the margins of professional architecture practice - in New York design studios like Pompei AD, and Sills+Hunniford, and later at Platt Builders in Groton, Massachusetts.
“Within our segments we earned some nice recognition (Best use of Technology in a Retail Store, Best Whole-House Remodel over $200k); specific and qualified recognition from industry groups that don’t frankly mean much to me,” said Hess. The “AIA recognition feels different, of course. Coming from peers, it feels significant and substantive. And our company in the 2021 New England Design Awards is loaded with firms and individuals whose work I have admired for years.”
At Studio InSitu, the phrase ‘holistic sustainable placemaking at all scales’ conveys the common compositional and problem-solving core of the firm’s process whether for a bathroom or a whole campus. True believers in the power of good design to improve our world – really in every way – the firm does everything possible to be positive contributors.
“Beyond one more or less green building at a time, we’ve been involved in a broad range of efforts to improve the public realm with a humble kind of boots-on-the-ground sustainability, said Hess. “Conducting Design Review for a local Planning Board, leading a local Cultural District Initiative, Master Planning and surgical interventions for blighted and sprawl-damaged civic sites… One of our current projects is a mixed cultural commerce / residential project on a downtown riverfront brownfield site. If we succeed, it will have a chance to be a beautifully executed piece of the built environment in a few years’ time.”
“Within the context of our concern for our communities and the planet, and our hunger to help, the Masonic+Button apartment was almost a guilty pleasure / an indulgence; we had the luxury to focus very nearly all our efforts on the composition, and the congruous manifestation of a few simple ideas.”
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